


things were(n't) different then

by matchsticks_p (matchsticks)



Category: Savages (2012), Savages - All Media Types, Savages Series - Don Winslow
Genre: Canon Compliant, Multi, OT3, post-Kings of Cool, pre-Savages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2827556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchsticks/pseuds/matchsticks_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>O decides she wants to do what a normal girlfriend does with one of her boyfriends</p><p>(and here neither Ben nor Chon bother pointing out that normal girlfriends don't <i>have</i> boyfriends in the plural, because they're waiting for her to get to the really objectionable part of her scheme)</p><p>and meet the parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things were(n't) different then

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waltzmatildah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/gifts).



O goes through this phase, once

(O is a chick who goes through a lot of phases, but she only goes through this particular one once, thank god)

where she decides she wants to do what a normal girlfriend does with one of her boyfriends

(and here neither Ben nor Chon bother pointing out that normal girlfriends don't _have_ boyfriends in the plural, because they're waiting for her to get to the really objectionable part of her scheme)

and meet the parents.

A little ditty about Stan and Diane, John Mellencamp never sang. Two American kids who traded in all their drugs and ideals to go legit and raise a family. To raise Ben.

Irony: /ˈīrənē/ (noun) a state of affairs contrary to what one expects, often resulting in humour.

Anyway, Stan and Diane are the only parents who fit her yen for a picture perfect meet-the-parents scenario, because they've all met John McAlister and. Well. Let's just. Not.

O tries to convince Ben by saying, "How weird is it that your best friend in the whole world doesn't even know your parents? He would die for you. He would kill for you—" he _has_ killed for you, but O's too smart to think saying that would put Ben in any kind of agreeable mood "—and you won't even bring him home to mommy and daddy?"

O tries to convince Chon by saying, "If you go along with this, I'll toss your salad when I blow you."

The thing about being raised by two psychiatrists is that Ben is pretty much immune to emotional manipulation.

The thing about being Chon is that he knows if he waits long enough, O will pretty much end up putting her tongue wherever anyway, she's more insatiable for it than he is.

So they don't give in to her whims, but irony is on her side and the next week, while they're out shopping for a Tibetan singing bowl of all things (Ben, obviously—don't ask) who should they run into but

Stan and Diane. 

O is fucking _delighted_.

Chon coughs twice and tries to walk quietly away. Extricate yourself from a situation you can't defuse. Another thing he learned as a SEAL. They never quite trained him to extricate himself from O though, and she's like a fucking octopus when she wants to be. 

Drags him over with her metaphorical tentacles to where Ben is awkwardly talking to Stan and Diane and then says hi to them in a cooing sort of voice. Chon grits out some vague greeting.

It doesn't take a professional psychiatrist to look at the three of them and guess their relationships to each other. 

Chon can see the exact moment the penny drops for Stan and Diane, 

two professional psychiatrists. 

Not just about BenandChonandO, but also who Chon and O are. John's kid and Kim's kid. 

That's the difference between Ben and the people who fucked each other to make him. When he looks at Chon and O, he only sees Chon and O—not their parents, not their lineages, not the sins of their fathers. 

None of them really knows what went down in Laguna to put that look on Stan and Diane's faces, but Ben doesn't care and Chonny has already walked out and O's decided that this fantasy turned out to be a lot less interesting in real life. 

People

like them

who hold the future in the (collective) palm of their (collective) hand like a pearl nestled softly in a clam

don't need the past.


End file.
